Law Commons^™

Water Marketing As An Adaptive Response To The Threat Of Climate Change, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Demographic changes and existing water use patterns have placed tremendous pressures upon water supplies, particularly in the West. Global climate change will exacerbate pressures on water resources. The gradual warming of the atmosphere is certain to change the distribution and availability of water supplies, with potentially severe consequences for freshwater supplies. While climate change will have a significant impact on water resources through changes in the timing and volume of precipitation, altered evaporation rates, and the like, the precise nature, magnitude, timing, and distribution of such climate-induced changes are unknown. This uncertainty complicates the task of water managers who are …

Forward: To Prevent And To Punish: An International Conference In Commemoration Of The Sixtieth Anniversary Of The Genocide Convention, Michael P. Scharf, Brianne M. Draffin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bus Bombings And A Baby's Custody: Insidious Victories For Terrorism In The Context Of International Custody Disputes, Andrew Zashin

Faculty Publications

This article will address the problematic intersection of terrorism and child custody battles. The most immediate consequences of a terrorist attack are loved ones lost and buildings reduced to rubble. These losses are devastating, shocking and scary. But to end an analysis of terrorist victories with a body count is a fatal mistake. Americans fervently shout we cannot let "them" win, but how do we decide if they are winning? What do the terrorists want? It is not the goal of terrorists to simply kill Americans, causing death and destruction. That is merely a horrific means to their end. Terrorists …

Tainted Provenance: When, If Ever, Should Torture Evidence Be Admissible, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

Written by a consultant to the United Nation's newly established Cambodia Genocide Tribunal, "Tainted Provenance" examines one of the most important legal questions that will face the Tribunal as it begins its trials next year -- whether evidence of the Khmer Rouge command structure that came from interrogation sessions at the infamous Tuol Sleng torture facility should be considered notwithstanding the international exclusionary rule for evidence procured by torture. The issue of whether there should be exceptions to the torture evidence exclusionary rule (and how those exceptions should be crafted to avoid abuse) has significant implications beyond the international tribunal, …

Pretrial Discovery Of Expert Testimony, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Parents Involved And The Meaning Of Brown: An Old Debate Renewed, Jonathan L. Entin

Faculty Publications

In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 the Supreme Court debated the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education. This essay, prepared for a symposium on Parents Involved, traces the roots of the debate between color-blindness and anti-subordination to Brown itself and efforts to desegregate public schools in the wake of that decision but shows that the debate goes back at least as far as the tensions reflected in the first Justice Harlan's celebrated dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Law School Attire: A Call For A Uniform Uniform Code, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

Law professors dress scruffily, and we need to do something about that.

Academics In Wonderland: The Team Production And Director Primacy Models Of Corporate Governance, George W. Dent

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the Team Production and Director Primacy Models of corporate governance, finds them wanting, and explains why corporate governance is moving toward shareholder primacy and why this will benefit not only investors but the whole American economy.

The director primacy model posits that shareholders are so ill-informed and so divided in their interests that they would self-destruct if they controlled the firm. Accordingly they tie their own hands by ceding control to a board of independent directors. Advocates of the team production theory often agree with the foregoing but stress the importance to the firm of other constituencies, …

God, Gaia, The Taxpayer And The Lorax: Standing, Justiciability, And Separation Of Powers After Massachusetts And Hein, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court decided two important standing cases during the October 2006 term: Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation and Massachusetts v. EPA. The latter is important for what it did, the former for what it did not do. Whereas Hein hewed closely - perhaps too closely - to prior standing precendents, the Massachusetts decision substantially departed from existing precedent and established a new doctrine of special solicitude to state standing. Both decisions involved generalized grievances about federal government policies that affect citizens as a whole, but point in opposite directions. In many respects the opinions are in significant tension …

Foreword: Sacred Violence: Religion And Terrorism, B. Jessie Hill, Adam F. Kinney

Faculty Publications

Forward to the Sacred Violence: Religion and Terrorism, Cleveland, OH, 2008

Settling The Matter: Does Title I Of The Ada Work?, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

Analysis of cases decided under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which addresses employment discrimination, reveals that defendants have consistently prevailed in well over 90% of cases since the ADA's inception. This empirical evidence has led many commentators to conclude that the ADA's Title I has failed to improve workplace conditions for individuals with disabilities.

This article attempts to assess the efficacy of Title I through a different lens. It focuses on several data sets that have previously received little attention. It examines Equal Employment Opportunity Commission merit resolutions, lawsuit settlement statistics, and reports concerning reasonable accommodation …

Warming Up To Water Markets, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Water policy experts contend that the United States is heading toward a water scarcity crisis in the coming years. Global climate change is likely to make water scarcity much worse in the long run. This article argues that demands of current and projected water management challenges can best be met through a greater reliance on water markets. To facilitate this, water management must shift toward recognition of transferable rights in water that facilitate voluntary exchanges and the market pricing of water resources.

Getting The Roberts Court Right: A Response To Chemerinsky, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

In The Roberts Court at Age Three, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky offers a preliminary assessment of the Roberts Court. Among other things, Dean Chemerinsky reviews the effect of the Court's shrunken docket and the role of Justice Anthony Kennedy as the Court's median justice. Reviewing the Court's decisions over the past three years, Dean Chemerinsky concludes that the Roberts Court is the the most conservative Court since the mid-1930s. This is a substantial overstatement. The Roberts Court appears moderately more conservative than its predecessors in some contexts, but is also quite liberal in others. Its decisions on enemy combatants, capital punishment, …

Reconstituting Japanese Law: International Norms And Domestic Litigation, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

This paper examines a number of lawsuits challenging racial discrimination in Japan’s private sector. Since Japan does not have a law banning private acts of racial discrimination, victims of racial discrimination invoke international human rights law to buttress their claims for compensation. I argue that Japanese judges are, by and large, receptive to these international law claims, but that the system for adjudicating racial discrimination disputes is inadequate. Specifically, a law that bans private acts of racial discrimination would put Japan in line with recently emergent global norms of equality.

Stakeholder Governance: A Bad Idea Getting Worse, George W. Dent

Faculty Publications

Calls for a stakeholder voice in corporate governance never end, as evidenced by the Symposium Corporations and Their Communities to which this paper is a contribution. The demise of labor unions and explosion of executive compensation while the income of most Americans has stagnated over the last several years has precipitated cries for remedial action, some of which include stakeholder governance. Although complaints about deepening inequality are just, other remedies should be pursued. The traditional objections to stakeholder governance remain valid: the interests of stakeholder groups clash not only with those of the shareholders but also with each other, and …

Introduction: Corporations And Their Communities, Robert N. Strassfeld

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nontestimonial Identification Orders For Dna Testing, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Common Law Environmental Protection: Introduction, Jonathan H. Adler, Andrew P. Morriss

Faculty Publications

Today there is widespread dissatisfaction with many aspects of federal environmental law. The apparent success of early environmental regulations notwithstanding, many analysts and academics have begun to reexamine the potential of common law causes of action to supplement, if not supplant, portions of the existing regulatory regime. Yet whatever the failings of the environmental regulatory state, the common law has failings of its own, including the failure to protect many ecological resources in the period before the enactment of federal environmental law. This essay is the introduction to a paper-only symposium on Common Law Environmental Protection, forthcoming in the Case …

Emerging Issues In North American Trade - Labor Law, Chios Carmody, Kevin Banks, Robert Strassfeld

Faculty Publications

The Proceedings of the Canada-United States Law Institute Conference on an Example of Cooperation and Common Cause: Enhancing Canada-United States Security and Prosperity Through the Great Lakes and North American Trade, Panel on Emerging Issues in North American Trade - Labor Law, Cleveland, Ohio April 2-4, 2009.

Sepas, Climate Change, And Corporate Responsibility: The Contribution Of Local Government, Catherine J. Lacroix

Faculty Publications

Municipalities in the United States are increasingly active in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Data suggest that the physical layout of communities and the buildings they contain make significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and thus to climate change. One useful tool for municipalities could be the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), pioneered in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level and subsequently adopted as a policymaking guide in the State Environmental Policy Acts (SEPAs) of many states. A SEPA requires state governments - and, in six states, local governments as well - to consider the …

Is Nominal Use An Answer To The Free Speech & Right Of Publicity Quandary?: Lessons From America’S National Pastime, Raymond Shih Ray Ku

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Indian Gaming On Newly Acquired Lands, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This symposium article examines the meaning of the term Indian lands - the lands that might become sites for Indian gaming-in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. At its core, the term is unambiguous: it includes reservations and other lands that, at the time of IGRA's enactment, were held in trust by the United States for the benefit of American Indian nations. But Indian lands can include much more. Indeed, it is possible for real estate having only the most tenuous historical connections with a tribe (perhaps having no connections at all) to become Indian lands. The treatment of …

Taxation And Doing Business In Indian Country, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

Furthering investment in Indian country (a term that includes, but is not limited to, reservations) is an important goal, but potential investors are hesitant - and with reason. One disincentive to invest is uncertainty about tax liability. Understanding taxation in Indian country requires knowledge not only of traditional tax law, but also of American Indian law principles dating from the early nineteenth century, and not many practitioners are up to that task. This article tries to make sense, as much as is possible, of the doctrines that have developed over the centuries.

The article first discusses some basics: the concept …

Tryst Or Terrorists? Financial Institutions And The Search For Bad Guys, Richard K. Gordon

Faculty Publications

Under international standards, financial institutions are required to freeze the accounts of customers identified by government as terrorists or the supporters of terrorism. Financial institutions are also required to monitor client transactions to determine if they suggest terrorism financing. However, financial institutions have been given little guidance as to when a pattern of transactions might suggest terrorism financing. By outsourcing the identification of such patters to financial institutions, governments have abdicated their responsibility and reduced the availability of financial services for clients who fit a popular but inaccurate profile of a terrorist.

Alternative Methods Of Appellate Review In Trade Remedy Cases: Examining Results Of U.S. Judicial And Nafta Binational Review Of U.S. Agency Decisions From 1989 To 2005, Juscelino F. Colares

Faculty Publications

When the United States and Canada agreed to replace U.S. judicial review of trade-remedy cases with a new dispute mechanism under Chapter 19 of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (now the North American Free Trade Agreement), the U.S. Congress and trade negotiators expected that the new dispute settlement panels would apply U.S. law and the standard of review in the same manner as U.S. courts. This requirement was embodied in the text of the agreement and has at least nominally been applied by Chapter 19 panels ever since. Empirical analysis of seventeen years of decisions now allows a conclusion …

An Empirical Examination Of Product And Litigant-Specific Theories For The Divergence Between Nafta Chapter 19 And U.S. Judicial Review, Juscelino F. Colares

Faculty Publications

Empirical analysis of NAFTA panel review has shown that panels reverse US agency trade remedy determinations twice as often as US courts. Recent studies have eliminated case selection and other hypotheses as potential explanations for this divergence. In this article, Probit regressions show that case docket differences, such as type of import or litigant identity, also cannot account for this discrepancy. As NAFTA panels must apply the same law and standards of review as the US courts they replace, this divergence presents serious questions regarding US Congressional acquiescence to the operation of NAFTA panels and encourages discussion of the role …

A Brief History Of Brazilian Biofuels Legislation, Juscelino F. Colares

Faculty Publications

Due to concerns with global climate change, Brazil's long and diversified experience with biofuels has captured the attention of policymakers worldwide. Yet, little is known about the history and scale of the Brazilian biofuels program in the United States. This comment provides an introduction to the history of Brazil's biofuels program and refers to the basic statutes that set it in place. Due to the unavailability of these enactments in English, an appendix provides the relevant portions of these statutes both in Portuguese and in the author's English translation.

Money Or Nothing: The Adverse Environmental Consequences Of Uncompensated Law Use Controls, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

The conventional wisdom holds that requiring compensation for environmental land-use controls would severely limit environmental protection efforts. There are increasing reasons to question this assumption. Both economic theory and recent empirical research demonstrate that failing to compensate private landowners for the costs of environmental regulations discourages voluntary conservation efforts and can encourage the destruction of environmental resources. The lack of a compensation requirement also means that land-use regulation is underpriced as compared to other environmental protection measures for which government agencies must pay. This results in the "overconsumption" of land-use regulations relative to other environmental protection measures that could be …

Anti-Conservation Incentives, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Several recent empirical studies have indicated that the Endangered Specifies Act (ESA) discourages species conservation on private land. This is because the law encourages landowners to shoot, shovel and shut up before federal authorities discover the species are present or may move onto the land. Most worrisome, the studies suggest that the net effect of the ESA on private land could be negative. Habitat loss and fragmentation represent the greatest threat to endangered species because private land is indispensable to environmental conservation.

Hothouse Flowers: The Vices And Virtues Of Climate Federalism, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Federal law preempts state regulation of motor vehicle emissions. California alone is allowed to seek a waiver of such preemption, and unsuccessfully sought such a waiver for the state's regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The debate and pending litigation over California's effort to obtain a waiver of preemption has focused attention on the state role in climate change policy. This paper explores the role of state governments in developing climate change policy, with a particular focus on how federalism principles and practice should inform judgments about the division of authority between the state and federal governments. As …